Eddy Punch Clock wrote:^ As I said earlier, the only way we move Lou and land Nash is with a three way deal.

I disagree...

Not saying it would be easy... but we have assets that could be moved to make the numbers "work"!

Ballard.... Booth.... Maholtra....

It's doable if Columbus were interested!

Seriously, who would take Maholtra off the Canucks?

If the Canucks trade Ballard, they would definitely need a top-four defenseman back who would cost about the same.

Booth is an interesting option. He did not play well this playoffs. Was it his fault? I am not so sure. Would the result be the same if AV put the AMEX line back together? I seriously hope MG would give Booth one full year with the team before making a decision on him.

Little off topic with Booth, but IMO Veenyo didn't handle that as well as he could. Dumping him with the twins to start the playoffs.....ok I'm done.

$70m cap ceiling next year

Insane. So, going into the CBA talks we are talking about that figure, wow! Well, let's sign another gt'er for another 12 yr deal.

dbr wrote:$70m cap ceiling next year, the Canucks have $15m in space and nobody particularly important to re-sign except Schneider, with no cap ceiling bump the following year (which is literally unprecedented) they'll have $28m to re-sign Edler, Tanev and Burrows.

The Canucks cap problems are overblown, they don't have much space relative to many other teams but there's more space right now than there are players to spend it on.

Considered in isolation I'd much rather have Schneider than Luongo but if the choice is between dealing Lou for a rich man's Mason Raymond (say Ted Purcell) vs. trading Schneider for a veteran - or future - elite scoring forward, you've got to give it some serious thought.

Most of the cap should be allocated to fix the defense first. Salo, retires or not, should not be a top-four next season. Can MG land Suter with a big offer? If not, he needs to sign a top-four and hopefully trades one of our existing top-four + for a true #1 dman. Either way, the Canucks need to allocate at least $7-$10 more on defense next season. Whether MG re-signs Pahlsson or not, the Canucks need another $2-3 million for a third line centre. Do the Canucks have that much cap space left afterall?

Jovocop wrote:Most of the cap should be allocated to fix the defense first. Salo, retires or not, should not be a top-four next season. Can MG land Suter with a big offer? If not, he needs to sign a top-four and hopefully trades one of our existing top-four + for a true #1 dman. Either way, the Canucks need to allocate at least $7-$10 more on defense next season. Whether MG re-signs Pahlsson or not, the Canucks need another $2-3 million for a third line centre. Do the Canucks have that much cap space left afterall?

$7-10m more on defense means $28-31m in total, that's a huge chunk of change. The fact is Gillis is going to be hard pressed to add a defenseman who is even close to being worth a $7m salary, and if he can then he can easily find a way to dump Keith Ballard. Unless Gillis is going to hand out two or three multimillion dollar contracts to defensemen this offseason I don't think you see that group costing that much money next year.

As for a $2-3m centre, yeah they could certainly use it. But again if they're going to go out and do that in the offseason my guess is that Manny Malhotra will have to move on first.

CFP! wrote:Exactly, if the Canucks pick up Nash, one of the $5m+ Canucks has to go. There are only four players making >= $5m, the Sedins, Luongo and Kesler. The Sedins are untouchable. If MG trades Kesler, the Canucks would need a second line centre back which would cost about the same or more than what Kesler makes. Therefore, Luongo has to be moved.

Raymond + Ballard equal 7 mil of wasted cap space.

Even for mid round draft picks, those two salaries are enough to free up cap space for a "Nash" type player.

CFP! wrote:Exactly, if the Canucks pick up Nash, one of the $5m+ Canucks has to go. There are only four players making >= $5m, the Sedins, Luongo and Kesler. The Sedins are untouchable. If MG trades Kesler, the Canucks would need a second line centre back which would cost about the same or more than what Kesler makes. Therefore, Luongo has to be moved.

Raymond + Ballard equal 7 mil of wasted cap space.

Even for mid round draft picks, those two salaries are enough to free up cap space for a "Nash" type player.

Raymond is a waste of cap space but I am not so sure about Ballard. Salo might be back but he is not a top-four any more. Unless you get a better top-four to replace Ballard or believe that Rome, Tanev or Alberts is a better top-four option, Ballard will be needed next season.

I'd rather us get a dman for Luongo in return, if Washington falters vs Boston and they are looking for a franchise goalie, what do you guys think of getting John Carlson + cap filler for Luongo or Schneider + Tanev?

Jovocop wrote:Raymond is a waste of cap space but I am not so sure about Ballard. Salo might be back but he is not a top-four any more. Unless you get a better top-four to replace Ballard or believe that Rome, Tanev or Alberts is a better top-four option, Ballard will be needed next season.

I’m not going to argue who we should get or who Columbus or any other team would want. I mean I have no idea what other teams are asking in return.

The only point I’m trying to make is if I was the guy calling the shots I’d keep Luongo and his proven track record over Schneider despite how great Schneider has looked. Schneider is not going for nothing! We’ll get a very good player or two back. Maybe Columbus gives us their 2nd overall pick? Who knows right?

For every “next great goaltender” there’s a Steve Mason. Three years ago he wins the Calder, 33 games with a .916 SV% and GAA of 2.29. At 20 years old he was the darling of the NHL, the next big thing. He hasn’t come close since. He sucks!

I’m not saying Schneider will do what Mason did. I’m saying he could! He’s never played more than 33 games. With Lack being an unknown, he could be forced to play 70 next season. He will play double the games he did this season and all the pressure will be on him. No Luongo to fall back on. We have no idea if Schneider can handle that load and still perform in the playoffs.

We know Luongo, for all his blemishes, can! In fact, one could argue Luongo could be better if the team was “his” again. He’s always thrived playing a lot of hockey and facing a shit load of shots.

Unless there is more to the story than we (I) know (family issues), if Luongo wants to stay, I’d keep Luongo as in my opinion we know exactly what we’ll get! A very good, top six or so in the league goalie that locked in at a very reasnable 5.33 a year!

Jovocop wrote:Raymond is a waste of cap space but I am not so sure about Ballard. Salo might be back but he is not a top-four any more. Unless you get a better top-four to replace Ballard or believe that Rome, Tanev or Alberts is a better top-four option, Ballard will be needed next season.

Well, we know that MG and company did what they had to, to inflate Cody's trade value, in their opinion, maybe they are doing the same with Cory?

Maybe all of this is posturing including Luongo saying he would waive if asked. Maybe the plan all along is to get Cory's trade value so high they hit a home run.

Maybe Donny is right. At some point MG and company silently made a determination that this team was not going to win the prize this year and so they started posturing for next season. MG did say that Cory's emergence as a true number one has complicated things. Cory was given key games, pivotal games to see how he would perform and he was given 3 consecutive playoff games where he was stellar. Maybe Luongo knows all of this. Maybe Gina is in on the rope a dope.